Thursday, April 26, 2007

Effing opposum got one of my chickens

This isn't a picture of the one I caught tonight -- this one was caught in a trap, not by hand. But there has been a call for graphics on the blog so here ya go.

Man, they are relentless. Tonight is I believe the 11th I've removed from the property now.

I was taking out the garbage tonight, before I was going to go lock up the chickens since we've had some egg stealing going on lately. Turns out I was too late, I heard some squawking coming from the coop, grabbed a flashlight and looked and sure enough there's a juvenile opossum chewing on the neck of one of my blue Andalusians. I got mad.

I locked him in the coop, and was planning to kill the little bugger, despite having been dedicated to live-catching and transplanting them for quite some time now. I don't know what it was, I was tired, had some problems with a friend I've been chewing on, long day -- all that. The Wife could tell what I was thinking and talked me back into doing my normal thing, which is to catch em by the tail and dump them into a rabbit cage.

I bought a nice fancy fancy live-catch trap (pictured above) but it's on loan to some friends up on Mt. Hood who have a raccoon issue going on.

So I bent a piece of pvc over my knee to make some "opposum tongs," threw on some leather gloves and went in the coop to get the little bastard. He tried a few tricks but I got him by the tail eventually and got him dumped into the rabbit cage. I was frustrated and even said something stupid like "you're lucky my wife's a nice lady ya little bastard," and kicked the cage.

I cooled off pretty quick. I spread newspaper on the back seat of the Subaru in preparation for his transport. By the time I was carrying the cage to the car he looked like they all eventually look -- just a dim little omnivore trying to get along in the world. I'm real glad The Wife talked sense into me, I'd've felt like a dick if I killed him. He's just a little dude doing his thing -- that thing just happens to conflict with my thing.

So I drove him out to the Bible College and let him go, as is the tradition.

Why Bible College you ask? Well, it backs up on Rocky Butte, which has acres and acres of prime opossum habitat, for one. For two, there's a nice dark turnaround with a good spot for me to let em go. Also, it's probably 5 miles away, and has both a large freeway as well as many well-lit and very busy streets between their new habitat and my back yard. Finally, of course, there's just something poetic to me about giving these huge rats an opportunity for Old Time Religion as part of their rehabilitation from a life of crime.

PS: Little Missy, the Blue Andalusian who is no longer with us, will be buried deep under a vegetable bed in the back yard, providing nutrients for I believe Tomatoes this year and who knows what in the future. She was a brassy little thing, having escaped once and evaded capture by my whole neighborhood for 2 full weeks before she was trapped by the aforementioned apparatus and returned to her flock. May she rest in peace.

Those omnivores have it all wrong . . . you don't just go running around biting the heads off of chickens . . . you manufacture an invisible-to-the-public slaughterhouse of pain, fear, and loathing in the backyard and then cook and package the now sanctified meat in a golden wrapper and sell it as "protein-delicious!" from the front yard.

A picture is worth a thousand words

About Me

I'm a 38-year-old recent college graduate in Biology, husband, and new father, recovering from a career as an electrician. These blogs are intended for recreational use only -- any medicinal benefits are purely coincidental.
Email me with any rants, concerns or questions.